Marina Del Rey Condominium $15 Lawsuits, Toronto

The Toronto Waterfront area can be a beautiful place to live. I thought all my dreams had come true when I moved in to my condominium 23 years ago. It has the most spectacular view of this city! However, I soon discovered that purchasing this property would become my biggest nightmare! I have now been homeless for 13 years!

This is a cautionary tale about what happens to a condo owner at Marina Del Rey Phase I, 2261 Lake Shore Blvd. W, who is forced to commence legal action in an effort to rebuild her home after years of continuous water flooding problems, mismanagement, neglect of duties, and bad faith displayed by insurance companies.

I have started this blog with the hope that I can provide help and encouragement to others who find themselves in a similar situation. Insurance companies and corporations have lots of money and lawyers to fight us. However, we have the power of the internet and the social media to connect, support each other, and exchange helpful information.

"Every condo building in Toronto has a secret. The only thing that separates crappy balconies from crappy soundproofing, plumbing, drainage, elevators, heating, air conditioning and mechanical equipment is that anybody can see the balconies falling apart. The rest is hidden from public view, as are the boardroom confrontations and the quietly launched civil lawsuits that follow, when condo owners with no other recourse take their developers to court. In March, a group of unit owners at the Festival and Murano towers filed class action lawsuits against their respective developers and architects, and the balcony installer at both locations, Toro Aluminum Railings. Even though the developers are replacing the glass at their own expense, the lawsuits claim that residents have been denied access to a significant portion of their living space for too long, through no fault of their own. They believe someone is negligent, and someone should pay. Each suit claims a total of $20 million in damages."

"Such lawsuits are increasingly common, with damage claims for shoddy construction running from the tens of thousands to the tens of millions, naming developers, architects, concrete-waterproofing subcontractors and everyone in between. As the repair bills and legal fees mount, the courts try to figure out who will pay for the fixes. Meanwhile, with hundreds of cranes poking out of the city skyline and developers scrambling to build still more towers, we’re presented with the real possibility that many more of these condo boom buildings will bust."

"Finding a way to detect problems early could help head off a situation similar to the condo crisis in Vancouver and Victoria, which suffered an epidemic of leaky buildings constructed in the late 1980s and 1990s—some 65,000 units in all. British Columbia created a commission of inquiry headed by former premier Dave Barrett, and its report, issued in 1998, was scathing. It blamed municipalities for failing to monitor building quality, the province for allowing loose interpretations of the building code, architects and engineers for failing to ensure their designs were properly translated, contractors for passing the buck, unskilled labour for poor workmanship and developers for failing to disclose all information to newly formed condo boards."

"Earlier this year, Rosario Marchese introduced a private member’s Bill 72at Queen’s Park to amend the Condominium Act, the legislation that lays the groundwork for buying, selling and living in condominium dwellings (including everything from who is allowed to vote at condo corporation meetings to how a condo decides whether to ban pets) and which hasn’t been updated since 1998. Marchese’s bill would also update the Ontario building code’s soundproofing standards. It will be the fourth time he has tried to amend the act; each previous attempt has been stymied by the Liberal government.
Marchese’s bill would create a condo review board not unlike the current landlord and tenant board, to act as a dispute resolution body for conflicts between condo boards, owners, property managers and developers."

Toronto condo building lawsuits are complex with multiple parties pointing a finger at each other. Could a Condo Review Board be able to sort out complex legal issues?

3 comments:

Thanks for sharing information of waterfront condos toronto.The only thing that separates balconies from crappy soundproofing, plumbing, drainage, elevators, heating, air conditioning and mechanical equipment is that anybody can see the balconies falling apart.